212 Ebola messages in my mailbox...

[Jane E. Hawkins]

vampires at freenet.ufl.edu says ( Sat, 13 May 1995 21:57:15 -0400 )...
>
>On 14 May 1995, Jane E. Hawkins wrote:
>
>> The big question, eh?  Wouldn't we all like to know ....
>> 
>> Question: The dim recesses of my memory say the the index cases for 
the 
>> last two Ebola outbreaks both worked in cotton mills. I recall one 
such 
>> mill being virtually pulled to pieces in an attempt to find an 
insect, 
>> animal, or any organic matter with traces of the virus, to no avail.
>> Does anyone here know anything about that?
>> Jane
>> 
>Unless I'm mistaken, you're referring to the Marburg virus and not 
Ebola. 
>I'll have to go get my books and look this up, but i'm pretty sure it 
was 
>Marburg (sp?)


Nope. Ebola.  I found where I got it from: *The Coming Plague* by Laurie 
Garrett, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.   

p 146

"In N'zara ... the virus seemed to come, somehow, from the cotton 
factory, and the WHO team devoted a great deal of time and attention to 
that building, where nearly a thousand men worked at any given time.  
Freshly picked cottom came in one end of the structure and was processed 
room by room into bolts of finished cloth.

"Blood tests showed the highest infection and death rates were among the 
twenty-four men employed in the cloth room: four deaths and five 
nonlethal cases, for an overall infection rate of 38 percent.  Francis 
and Highton combed the room in search of an animal or insect that 
carried the Ebola virus."


By the way, *The Coming Plague* is very good.  It covers much more 
territory than *The Hot Zone* and also has a (wonder of wonders!) a 
fairly well organized index.  

Jane
__________________________________________________________________
           Jane E. Hawkins, jhawk at oz.net
   "Time is the fire in which we burn."
                               Delmore Schwartz
 
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